Lee Johnson met the press after the first pre-season match of the summer, a 2-2 draw against Spennymoor. Here's what he had to say...
GOOD WORKOUT
Yeah, very good, I think we’ve been really well looked after so a lot of credit has to go to Spennymoor as a club and it was nice to see fans here as well, it made it a good little atmosphere. Obviously used in a different way first game of the season so first half the boys had to work hard. They’re a good side, they’re physical and I think this is the twelfth session of the week for the boys. I was pleased that we came out of it with no injuries obviously, 1-0 up at half time but to be fair they had some good chances as well and we were slightly unbalanced due to just getting the boys numbers really, but I can’t grumble at the effort and the work rate put in after a very big week.
FIRST WEEK
It’s been very good, there’s no denying we’d have preferred to have three of four more in but it’s just not been like that, not just here but at almost every club. I think the euros has allowed the transfer market to stagnate a little bit because the guys at the top have to make their move and then there’s a domino effect on the back of that. But I think today was about two things. One, obviously the fitness levels of the first team players and two, a good second half performance from a really young group of players against men. I think they would have appreciated the physicality and felt that and learned from that. But also, we played some really nice football with the young lads in the second half so overall probably 2 all is a fair result.
UNDER-23S
It’s just the day isn’t it, like you say with fans there and trying to be cohesive together and having the pressure of getting a result even though it’s a pre-season game, and having the pressure of going against the physicality of a side like Spennymoor so they would have learnt an awful lot today and I think for that reason it was an outstanding exercise.
PLANS
Yeah, just rest tomorrow, day off tomorrow, and come back on Monday again and straight back into it. One thing we’ve got to make sure is we start the season extremely fit and we’ve had a nice balance between getting some football into the boys' legs but also a lot of running as well so we’re trying to modernise it so you don’t get called a dinosaur but so far the lads' efforts have been very commendable.
